201 | Build a Business, Leave a Legacy with Asha Wilkerson
Image of Asha Wilkerson, guest for episode 201 of the Awarepreneurs podcast
Our guest on the pod this week is Asha Wilkerson. Asha takes great pride in working with and teaching BIPOC entrepreneurs about business formation, contract creation, & liability reduction. She is committed to helping entrepreneurs of color not only start businesses, but also stay in business for years to come. She also enjoys training leaders in areas of diversity and leadership and has a particular affinity for working with non-profits and faith based organizations.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Build a Business Legacy Awarepreneurs interview with Asha Wilkerson
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Asha Wilkerson
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of The Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce our guests and our topic, I have one request. If you could go to Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening to this show on do a rating and review, it helps tremendously. Thank you so much. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce Asha Wilkerson, in our topic is build a business leave a legacy, I should take great pride in working with and teaching bipoc entrepreneurs about business formation, contract content creation and liability reduction. She's committed to helping entrepreneurs of color not only start businesses, but also staying in businesses for years to come. She also enjoys training leaders in the areas of diversity and leadership, and has a particular affinity for working with nonprofits and faith based organization. Asha, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It is my pleasure to be here. It's really an honor to have you and what a timely topic I've been having. I guess we were just getting ready. I've been having more conversations than usual about legal structures, and just some of the issues we face as entrepreneurs doing really important and impactful work. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I got this great conversation. I don't know the universe knew that this conversation was destined to happen totally.
Paul Zelizer 01:38
Yeah, totally. Before we get into the work you do and how you got into doing it. We're called the where printers show. And we'd like to get to know somebody by asking you about a wellness are an awareness or resiliency practice that you personally use.
Asha Wilkerson 01:52
Yeah, so the one that popped into my mind just now is, I guess you could call it a mindfulness practice. But I learned about it from a psychologist listening to our podcast. And it had to do with calming yourself down in situations where you feel like you're just reacting. But the skill set that I learned is I'm applying it everywhere. So something happens most situations are neutral, right, but we have a thought about them, that then creates a feeling that we then take action on. So let's say we've gotten into a car accident, which could be neutral, I guess for business, let's say we lost a client that could be neutral, right, then we have a thought that it's bad. So then we feel terrible about it. And then we take an action based on that feeling. So what I have started to do is to just pause at that mindfulness piece, assess what the situation is, recognize my thought about it, and then ask myself, Is this true? What else could be true? What else could be happening here? And how do I want to think about this situation, so I can feel a different way. And that has served me really well from dealing with potential clients to co workers to, you know, getting business news that I haven't been a fan of, or you know, getting some ignite exciting news that where I want to take an immediate action, I stop and say, okay, is this really the best thing for me? What else could be going on here? How do I want to move forward in this situation? And then let's do it. So that's the biggest awareness practice that I think is serving me really well right now.
Paul Zelizer 03:26
A great practice. Thanks for sharing that. So this topic of law and legal structures and business and bipoc communities and impact, like give us a short version of the origin stories. How did Asha Wilkerson get really excited about being a lawyer deals with that?
Asha Wilkerson 03:44
Uh, huh. Yeah, absolutely. So it started about a year and a half ago, when one of my clients asked me, he was like, okay, Asha, how do I keep my money? Like, you form this business for me now? How do I keep my money like all the rich folks do? And I was like, Huh, that's a really good question. He said legally, like all the rich folks do, right. And I thought, you know what, that's a that's a really interesting question. Because so often, as young entrepreneurs or novice entrepreneurs, we're so afraid to have to pay taxes. We're so afraid of having business expenses. We're so afraid of these things. But there are people like the top 10% wealthiest folks in America, the majority of them have a family on business somewhere, right? So they have learned, usually through generations, how to run this business that ends up benefiting the family. So when my client asked me that, I started doing research and I realized that the information is available. It's not all that complicated, but most people don't know where to look. They don't know who to ask and they don't know how to implement it. So I started curating my own community of experts, of accountants of other attorneys, of business advisors, to see how we can keep our money like rich folks do. Right or build our businesses like rich folks do. So that was really the catalyst for it. And my choice to focus on the bipoc, the black indigenous people of color community, is because we are historically under resourced, right? And underserved. And so a lot of us don't have family members that we can look up to like that uncle that's been in business for, you know, 40 or 50 years to be able to ask this question of, so it started from a genuine question. And I started doing research. And then I looked and said, which communities need this information the most, because they're the ones who are missing it. And that's where it came from. And I've just was having a conversation with a social entrepreneur, who, for instance, was changing the legal structure from an LLC to an S corp, because there were all kinds of tax things that could happen. And the end result was a lot. Not a little bit a lot. Right? It's right. Exactly. Oh, my gosh, so so I may be calling you person. Yeah, definitely. I mean, our and that's just part of the knowledge piece of it right, that our internal revenue code, the tax code is set up to benefit corporations, you do get some tax benefits as an LLC, you get legal protection, certainly with either one of those. But the corporate the tax code is written to benefit corporate owners, right. So when we are looking at political discussions, and people get all upset, and they wonder how Amazon hasn't paid taxes, and all that stuff, it's because that's the way the code is written. Now, there's one thing most of us complain about how Amazon hasn't paid taxes, but we don't always take the next step and say, Hmm, I wonder how my business could also benefit from the same tax code that Amazon is benefiting from? Let's take a look at that. And so that's where I am pulling in the experts, because I am by no means a tax expert. But I love asking the questions and telling people what questions to ask the tax expert, so that we can, you know, play play the game, just as well as the corporate giants are playing the game. So let's wind it back and give us sort of a top level like when we were talking, before we hit record, we we kind of came up with like three buckets, there's so much we could talk about, we only have about an hour. And when we really tried to prioritize, we came with like three buckets of information that somebody who's doing impact work like, Alright, let me just try not to get sued. And then let me go out there and help the community and if that, like I totally get it, and I've been there and we have a lot of listeners in that, that that's the Mojo that's what gets us excited to get out of bed and go home. But But if we don't necessarily pay attention in these three buckets, we're we could be a have more legal exposure and be missing the opportunity to build wealth and be able to help our families and our communities in the way you're talking about. So those three buckets that we came up with are the business structure, the some growth strategies, and particularly your company starts to grow, like hiring people, some things you want to know. And this legacy piece that you're incredibly passionate, give us a top level is buckets, and we'll dive into each one. Why are these the ones that are so important? Yeah, so the first part of having a strong business Foundation, that's really extremely important, because if you build this empire, on top of a shaky Foundation, one little thing goes wrong, and your entire Foundation has crumbled, right? It's like, what what is that saying don't build a house on sinking sand, right? You need a strong concrete foundation to be able to build on top of so that if there's a lawsuit, if there's a tax payment that you missed, it doesn't crumble your entire business with that also provides the legal protection. And then you want to make sure you know, you have contracts and things like that set up. The second phase, then once you have that first part taken care of, is understanding how to grow your business. And it's not necessarily make it bigger and better. I mean, better, yes. But it's not necessarily like you need to have 500 employees, but it's really how to make it efficient so that your revenue grows at but keeping in mind that you don't necessarily need your operating costs to grow at the same rate rate at the same rate. Right. So how do you what things can you implement to increase your profitability and your efficiency in the business? And the third phase, which can happen? overlaps the second phase is now that you're making some money? Where are we putting that money to be able to plan for your financial future, impact your family and then leave something for your kids or for the community or to be able to pass that that wealth on to somebody else? And I thought about the other day, you know, people of color in the United States, especially particularly black folks, I think it's only like 30% of black folks are inheriting wealth or not even wealth just receiving an inheritance When their parents die, as opposed like 70% of white Americans, right? So the 30% is like, Okay, well, my parents say they believe something. But what if we could get to a place where our parents didn't have to die to be able to help us, right? That's the kind of revenue that I want to help people create in their business, that it's, you know, it's not just Oh, when I'm out of here, you'll be taken care of, like, let's help take care of ourselves and take care of each other. While we are still here, running a business that we enjoy, and being efficient with it.
Paul Zelizer 10:32
Beautiful. And I know, we're in the midst of the largest wealth transfer that planet Earth has ever seen, like somewhere in the next I forget, if it's five or 10 years, but a lot of boomers, either dying or kind of planned estate giving to different situations and the inequality. But think about that for a minute, like the largest transfer of wealth has ever seen. And like some, you know, our listeners know about inequality, you know about health inequality. Who gets VC funding? Well, that transfer of wealth also looks very, very similar. If we can move that needle. We just had Yasmin Cruz, further, you know, visible hands talking about, you know, getting money into founders of color and what that does, and, and we had Genevieve Chavez and I'll put links to these did a fabulous interview, impact investor, that Tina, impact investor here in Albuquerque talking about what happens when we put our money and communities in very intentional ways, right. So now, right, what I just want to highlight listeners think about the long arc of this podcast, what Asha is by decides to do is to go out and build wealth, not from a place of greed, but from a place of taking care of our families and communities. Just think about that for the long term impact of what that does. And maybe that could help. All right, I know there's three more people I want to help or this blog post or this program, or this, you know, community group that needs my volunteer work. But if we just pause and put a little bit of time and effort here, we can build something that can have impact for generations to come. Right. I think that's what I hear you inviting us to do. Is that what I'm absolutely, absolutely and and that's definitely like the local impact. But when I look at politics, too, right? The politicians are funded essentially by corporations, because it's very rare that an individual donor can give enough money to a politician to make the politician pay attention. Usually it's coming from some kind of a business or industry right. And, well, I think that that sucks, and I would like it to change. That is the system that we live in. So when we talk about changing the rules and changing the game, Money Talks, right Money Talks, so if we can get our communities to be economically viable enough that you want to donate to a particular politicians campaign because you believe that they have your best interests at heart. Now, if we're making money, we can do that instead of leaving our elected officials up to the folks who can pay for them. So let's let's break this down a little bit and go like dig dig a little deeper. So we know that these are the three buckets talk to us about each one of them. So let's start with business structure. So give us like if somebody's either brand new and like are I just starting to wrap their head around business structure maybe they've been in business a little while but they haven't you know, they just kind of like alright, somebody told me I should be an LLC for instance, and they file a great dun checkoff, like I didn't do any more thinking than that. And now that I'm in it for five years and paying the bills, at least, with my business, maybe there's a second glance, I want to circle back around and see if I check some boxes. So give us like those two versions brand new and around for a little while, but never really thought about it that much version of what might somebody want to be paying attention to in those two scenarios, in terms of Yeah, so 99% of the time, maybe 95% of the time, I recommend that people form either an LLC or a corporation, even when they're just starting out. And a lot of times, that's different advice and what I tax like a CPA would provide, but that's because they're looking at the taxes, and I'm looking at legal liability, right? So not only do LLCs and corporations protect you if you have a disgruntled client that wants to sue you, but with the failure rate of businesses, especially in the first three years is extremely high. So if you open up and start a business, and you take out loans, if you can do it in the name of the business or engage with vendors in the name of the business, and the business goes belly up those debts die with the business as long as you've taken them out in the name of the business. So that actually provides more protection for you as the entrepreneur, not just thinking if you get sued, it does do that too. But also if you have to give it up because it's not going anywhere or it's
Asha Wilkerson 15:00
You know hemorrhaging money, then you are protected from that liability. So are that responsibility that debt. So that's really important. You don't want to put your personal credit on the line more than is absolutely necessary. Right? On the other side of that, too, if someone's been in business for a little bit, and they're thinking about, okay, should I be an LLC or a corporation, I advise talking to both an attorney and an accountant. And I, I tell people to look at where they are now, but also where they want to be in the next three or five years. So I meet a lot of people who say, Well, I don't want to pay California has this $800 minimum tax for LLCs. And corporations, like, Look, how much money do you plan to make like, you're gonna make some money and your taxes are going to be over $800. Anyway, so this $800 minimum tax really shouldn't be a deterrent. But because people have mis named it a fee, they have that scarcity mindset, and they're terrified. So they'll forego the legal protection, because they don't want to pay $800 as a minimum tax. But to me, that's worth it. Like, that's just the cost of doing business you're going to pay when you do business, that's just how it's set up. Right? So talk to an attorney and an accountant to see what makes the most sense economically, for you, tax wise for you, legally for you, your friend who is running a business down the street, they have a completely different situation than you do. And people get into trouble all the time, I listening to someone who has talked about their situation, but their situation is completely different than the person receiving the advice. And when you don't listen to an expert, you're subject to a lot of information that may be well meaning but not actually accurate. So talk to the professionals, I recommend not forming the business yourself, at least not without some guidance, because I'm dealing with somebody right now, who's a licensed professional, and she went in filed her Corporation herself. But in California, because she has a license, she has to be a professional Corporation. So now she's asked me to go back and fix it with the Secretary of State, if she would have just come to an attorney in the first place. She wouldn't be paying a second person paying me now to fix it for her. Does that answer your question?
Paul Zelizer 17:12
No, that was awesome. And I just had a situation of somebody who's been a sole proprietor and built a very nice business. And he's the homeowner and excetera. And I took a look at what was going on as I do you know, it has retirement accounts as they do you understand that every app there ever was a legal issue. Every as that you and your family and he's married, you and your wife own and he's lives in a joint property state, every asset you have this on is is fair game, and he does. Very calm. He works with complex trauma issues and clinical issues as I do you understand how much liabilities like I have a great accountant. I'm like, yeah, your accountant probably checks the boxes, in terms of making sure you don't the IRS doesn't come after you and say I have a problem. But if you ever had any issue with the client saying you did something legally not okay. wasn't happy, every dollar you've ever learned is right. Oh, and he took a big gulp Who do you know, we got Jack's?
Asha Wilkerson 18:19
Exactly right. And even on the flip side, even if it's not a disgruntled client, but let's say you're hospitalized for some reason, and you know, you can't pay you don't have the money in your personal account to pay the medical bills with a medical bill collectors can come after you. And that's that same pot of money. If there's no separation between your business and you as an individual, everything is up for grabs. So it's not just a business lawsuit that bleeds into a personal It could also be a personal lawsuit that bleeds into the business as
Paul Zelizer 18:50
well. Think of that. So, obviously getting the business structure right, talk to an accountant, talk to an attorney get good advice there because you're that's that concrete foundation, don't just like bring a few friends over and a wheelbarrow and a couple shovels right that thing together if you don't build foundations for a living, like you know, this is what you're building on do it right talk to some folks who know what the what the possibilities are. So that's great advice. Sasha so so let's move on to your
Asha Wilkerson 19:24
worth it like your side denture up you you are worth paying an expert to get expert advice. Your business is worth paying an expert to get expert advice. If you don't feel like it's worth it, you're probably you know, your business probably isn't gonna go anywhere. Because if you don't treat it like it's something that's important that has a deserves to be protected. You know, what are you doing right? So you're worth it. You're worth that protection.
Paul Zelizer 19:48
You want people to pay you money, but it's not worth a couple grand to like, make sure you have a house that's built on a solid foundation and come back later, right. Yeah, exactly. So growth strategy. All right, so I build it. I'm with you. I like talk to tax accountant. I talked to a lawyer I like build some good solid. All right, right, gotcha. I heard you I either did it in the past, or I'm going to get some help and make it right. Now things are growing. Now I'm past startup. And like, you know, there's there's money flowing in this business, and it's growing. What do I need to be thinking about from your perspective?
Asha Wilkerson 20:22
Yeah, so the the next phase for me in no particular order is expanding your team. So I talked about, you know, not just the hard skills, like you need someone to do marketing, but what are the personality types, what it takes an inventory of what your strengths are, and what your weaknesses are, and being able to identify those complementary skills, so that your team becomes diverse in terms of skill set, and not just a replica of you over and over and over again, because if everyone looks just like, you has the same skill set as you, you're gonna, you're still gonna be subject to the same limitations, right? So it's about being able to expand and fill in the weaknesses. And that's not a negative thing, right? A lot of people think, well, if they're better at something than I am, that makes me weak, it doesn't, you can't be good at all things like no one is good at all things, right? So turn it into a strength and hire someone or bring someone onto your team that is really good at what they do, and let them shine in that area, and watch them take off and you shine in your area and watch yourself Take off. So it's part of it choosing the right team. And on the legal side of it. It's, you know, how do you know if they're a contractor or an employee? And the law is pretty clear about who can be classified is what and people mess it up all the time. And they say, like, Oh, well, I've been doing it this way. For the last five years. No biggie, right? It's not a biggie until it is a biggie. So when the IRS finds out, you've been paying a contractor or an employee, as a contractor, or that person gets hurt, and wants to file a workers compensation claim, or there's a separation of employment, or they're not working for you, you have to fire them, then they go to File unemployment, claim unemployment. And then unemployment is like, well, this person has never paid unemployment insurance, this company has never paid unemployment insurance, right? Those are three of the biggest ways that business owners sort of get caught, if you will, paying people improperly and the fines and fees for that they're not worth it, it's not worth it. People think that they're saving a little bit of money in the beginning. That's true. No, in the beginning, but if you if you get caught doing it incorrectly, it can, depending on how much capital you have in your business, it can take apart your business on California, that just the penalties range between 5020 $5,000 depending on how many times you've committed this violation. So I don't know about you, but I'd rather not. I'd rather pay a little bit more in payroll taxes, then, you know, $5,000, because I was trying to save a couple 100 bucks every month, right?
Paul Zelizer 22:58
There's this thing in Spanish, that cheap is expensive. being cheap, going the cheap route can be really, really expensive. Yeah,
Asha Wilkerson 23:07
absolutely. You're gonna pay for it one way or the other is it's going to be on the front end or on the back end. Right. The other thing I talked about in terms of growing your business is how do you use what you were already doing. So I work with mostly service based businesses. So we talk about productizing their services, so putting their services into a package offering so someone is, you know, buying a package instead of looking at a service or a cart? And how do you digitize some of the things that you're doing all the rage right now is creating a course but it doesn't have to just be a course it could be an E book, or a workbook or a workshop, right? working from one to many instead of one on one all the time. Unless that's your jam. So just looking at how do we duplicate or replicate what we're already doing in a slightly different way to create some of that passive income in your business to help grow your revenue
Paul Zelizer 24:00
and I just wanted to be vulnerable and give a share earlier winding it back a little bit I'll show you're talking about not everybody can be great at everything like I'm that that classic visionary founder like love big ideas and community builder. I'm also dyslexic, and I'm not particularly great with details. Right? Right. So like, you know, and that's just how I'm wired and I know that about myself and then you know, I do certain things really well and there's certain things I just really need help us you know, I need a bookkeeper I need to certain key things going on in my business because when I'm just don't put a dyslexic in charge of your books. It's a man.
Asha Wilkerson 24:41
Thing way right there are once you get over yourself, right and get over this thought that we have to be perfect. And also there's a really good book called The big leap by gay Hendricks who talks about working in your zone of genius that most of us are sort of floating around in our zone of excellence, which means that we're doing the stuff that we can do, we're doing pretty well at it. But how much but there everyone has those few things that they're really really good at, it comes so easily to them, so natural to them, that are really fun. And they are just like a rock star genius at it. And ideally, we should only be doing those things in our zone of genius, and let other people do things and their zone of genius. And there's no shame in it at all, one of the most freeing things that I have ever been able to say, and I say it now regularly, especially to my students is, I don't know, I don't have the answer to that. That's a really good question. Let's look it up, I'm gonna make mistakes, you're gonna make mistakes, we're all gonna make mistakes, I'm once you sort of get over feeling like you have to present this perfect image. It is really, really freeing to just be who you are, how you are allowed to call in the support when you need to call it the support.
Paul Zelizer 25:59
Love the frame, the being in your zone of genius. So we'll put a link into the show notes for the book that, that frame that, you know, that freed me up, like, I loved being a podcast host and, you know, running the overpronators community and work with clients, one on one, etc, etc. And yeah, there's certain things with the, you know, production of the podcast and bookkeeping, right, just to be able to, like have systems and people in place that don't make me do it is just such a relief and a gift to myself and to every plan. And now the world's a better place because Paul's not trying to do his books.
Asha Wilkerson 26:44
And then also, I think, you know, in the beginning, you do end up doing a lot of stuff yourself. Because if you are not starting with startup capital, then there isn't any money, right? A lot of folks start businesses without having any money. So they're doing everything from A through Z, right. But I think one of the fastest ways to get burnt out is by doing everything. So as soon as you can afford to hire somebody or trade services with somebody who is the expert in their area, do it, do it, because I'm at the point where I'm like, you know what, you know, creating the back end for my webinars, I can do it, I can make it happen, but it probably takes me twice as long as the person who loves doing it. And it's one of those tasks that I don't particularly enjoy, even though I'm capable. So it takes me you know, an hour and a half to do something that feels like it should have taken 15 minutes and I'm irritated by the time I'm done. Got an attitude, you know, all of this, it just has this trickle down effect. Whereas I love showing up talking, educating, teaching. And so that's what I'm focusing on now. And my mood has lifted I get excited when I get to login. You know, it just it everything just falls into place when you were doing the things that you truly enjoy doing.
Paul Zelizer 27:54
Yeah. The other thing that I got great advice. I love this advice. Cuz I too, when I was startup I used to be a social worker, I joke I was a social worker transformed into a social entrepreneur and social workers don't make a lot of money getting divorced, how a little kid how to reinvent myself, I had to do it all. So I'm with aren't any of our listeners who are in that spot. Somebody said to me, treat it like an exploration in writing a job description. Okay, when Paul was doing his own bookkeeping, like, what were the nuances of Paul, that you were learning by doing this or certain, you know, production things with the podcast that I know are out or other things like that, like, treat it as a like exercise, and oh, I'm this isn't my zone of genius. I know what my zone of genius is. I'm doing it now intentionally knowing it's, I can get it done. But it's not something that's going to serve me to keep doing and take notes. As if you were like writing the job description, knowing you're gonna pass it on. And you're, that changes the consciousness. So the best advice I ever got about being in that situation?
Asha Wilkerson 28:57
Yeah, absolutely. And then when you do onboard somebody else, now you have notes to show them about how you'd like it to be done. So you don't have to start every training from scratch. I like that idea a
Paul Zelizer 29:08
lot. Exactly. Here's how it works. Right? Here's how it works. This is the best system I have. You see ways to improve it. Great. This is your genius. But at least we're not starting from a blank page. And I can at least help you get some sense and onboard you as smoothly as possible. Because I've been writing as if like, someone's coming along to take this job soon. And I'm going to help them do a really great job. And it's going to be really fun to pass this one off. It changes the whole mindset about it.
Asha Wilkerson 29:33
Yeah, I love it. That's a great mindset shift. That's that's genius right there.
Paul Zelizer 29:39
Well, let's do this. In a minute. I want to ask you about the legacy part and also how specifically you work with clients. Before we do that, I want to just take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Do you have something that is about making the world a better place and you want this business to grow both in terms of impact and income So I'd like to talk to you about podcasting for a minute. And here's a couple of data points why the people listen to podcasts are really not a very traditional bunch. And I think that might be really interesting to you listeners. Specifically, there's three data points. Number one podcast listeners are what the researchers called early adaptors were those first 10% of folks who try something know that build energy, whether it's different form of yoga, or different kind of meditation, or something that's new and different in the social entrepreneur world. We are wired to look for new ideas, and give them a try really quickly. And when you get those early adapters, and they bring with them a whole other range of folks. But that's how you move the needle fairly quickly. And that's who podcast listeners are. Number two podcast listeners are natural leaders. Those were the kinds of people that folks turn to whether it's in our professional personal lives or community, you know, leader arrangements. What do you know Asha about blank? Here's somebody who knows a lot about a lot. And how would you handle this, right? So you're getting leaders to hear about your new ideas and your innovations. And lastly, podcast, listeners make more money, not just a little bit, but a lot more money. You put those three together. And that's a pretty incredible group of folks to get your social impact idea in front of if you'd like to learn about how you can use podcasting to grow your social business, whether you want to be a guest host or both aware printers has a podcast success team or will walk you through every step of the process of finding great podcast to be a guest on and becoming a world class podcast guest we have literally done a masterclass on that exact topic for being a host. And what about your sound? And what kind of technology? And how do you find great guests? And how do you build the number of downloads? How do you make it work in terms of an effective business growth tool for your goals? If you'd like to learn more, you can learn about our podcast success team at aware printers.com forward slash podcast dash success. And thank you to everybody in the podcast success team who sponsors this podcast. Sasha in the second part of the show, we like to joke about putting on our entrepreneur glasses, and let's unpack it a little bit. So before we do that, though, I want to hear about this legacy piece. Lawyers thinking about legacy and change communities that have historically been under resourced, we got to ask you like, what is legacy? You mean? Why are you passionate about it? And how do the kind entrepreneurs that are listening to this show that I think are going to be all over it even begin to move the needle in that direction?
Asha Wilkerson 32:53
Yeah, absolutely. Well, legacy? It's a really good question. I think it's whatever you actually want it to be. Traditionally it has been is what is what is left behind when you're no longer here, right? Like, what is your reputation, usually post mortem. But we're also building legacies while we're still alive, right? So it doesn't have to be morbid in that kind of a sense. But it's the reputation. It's the financial means that you're leaving behind for somebody, maybe the business that you're leaving behind for somebody, really, I think about it in terms of making sure that the next generation of folks gets it a little bit easier than than what I had to do. So what does that even look like? Right? First, it comes with changing your immediate family, then I think it comes with changing your neighborhood, and then your community and then you know, the world you just keep going out exponentially, right? So it's it's important to me, because we all need money to survive. economic class and poverty, right? It's all tied to economics, power, politics, it's all tied to economic social justice is tied to economics, the folks who have money, it's not to say that they don't have problems, but it's a different kind of problem, right? It's not a survival problem. There are other problems that affect folks who have financial means. So how do we get out of poverty? How do we get out of economic struggle? How do we get out of survival and into really thriving and being the full people that were able to be and in my opinion, one of the fastest ways to do that is through business ownership. And now, I don't necessarily encourage everyone to go out and be an entrepreneur. I think it takes a particular type of tenacity and perseverance to do that, and that's not for everybody and that's fine. But a lot of people have some kind of a side hustle or side income, whether it's selling cupcakes or empanadas, or you know, making clothes for somebody or you know, baby sitting on the side right and Want us to learn how to use our businesses to really get the most out of them. So many folks give their life to their business, and they work for their business. But I want us to learn how to make our businesses work for us. So the legacy piece really includes thinking about setting up your retirement. Right? Now you have a bit, think about it as if you went to go work for Apple, one of the first things you're going to do is ask what is their compensation package? And what is their 401k? match? Can you do the same thing in your own business? Yes. Now you just got to understand how you're going to do it and implement the strategy, right? What about hiring your kids within your business? If you are an LLC, then you can hire your kids, like the kids that are living in your house, and pay them up to $12,000 a year, but that is tax deductible, it's tax free for them. And it's a tax deductible expense for you. Right? We I'm assuming that most parents are probably giving their kids some money, some kind of an allowance or paying for the kids because kids are expensive, right? Why not teach them a little bit of business skill, give them some work experience, and also have that tax benefit within the business to do that, I feel like that's like the best, right? Another thing is that you can't sell a sole proprietorship. So going back to the retirement piece of it, and how long do you want to work? How much of your life do you want to give to this business? There are other options, besides working in your business until you die, you can sell off your business, you can sell a piece of your business, you can leverage it in other ways for financial gain or other types of gain, right? You've heard of corporate housing, right? What if even if you are the only owner of your corporation, maybe it makes sense for you to have a house in some other location that you get to use but that it's a benefit and an asset of the corporation? Right? These are all things that I want us to start thinking about to learn how to use our businesses to propel us into financial stability, and, and wealth and being able to pass that on. And like I had mentioned earlier, we talk about legacy when we're no longer here, but what about being able to help our children now? Right? What about being able to give your niece or nephew, the $20,000, they need to get to college so that they don't have to take out a student loan that they'll be paying off for the next 15 or 20 years, there's just there's a lot of leverage in being a business owner, and a lot of opportunity to take it in any direction that you want a lot of opportunity to build, build wealth, and to leave a legacy. So I'm trying to provide the information to folks and reshape that mindset. Get away from the scarcity and start thinking about what is this business going to give to me instead of what is it going to take from me I
Paul Zelizer 37:59
love by your sign. I love love specifically when you said make your business work for you, instead of you working. I just like want to jump up and down in my chair. Like just like the grounded in practice. So like I'm a second generation sort of social conscious entrepreneur, my mom, who was a school teacher, left teaching to raise two kids when we were young and then went back to school, got a master's degree in counseling and started her own business. And she was doing therapy and she did her first healing your inner child group I'm dating myself here you'll remember reference points here though. JOHN Bradshaw was really big back in the personal development were all my mom was doing healing your inner child groups and hypnosis for stop smoking, right? So one of my very first like paid things is she made cassette tapes, I'm dating myself here, right? Like hypnosis thing to like, you know, hypnosis for stop smoking or losing, or like, you know, calming anxiety, etc, etc, right? So we wouldn't want to miss you bought this little machine. And we would make I think it was 25 cents aside, we would make $1 because you could put four in in the time we made $1 per tape, right? You just pop them in with the original and then the things and then flip them over, it was done and paste a little label on both the red tape and on the actual cassette bang. We'd make money as like, you know, or I think maybe we were preteens or something like that, as well. And then we might you know, fast forward Paul becomes a social worker then becomes a social entrepreneur. When my daughter was about that same age she there was a workshop on social entrepreneurship that the city Albert green paid for she did it blah, blah, blah. She got kind of excited about social entrepreneurship. And I taught her how to do simple social media marketing activities, right posting on Facebook and how you do stuff on Instagram. And she's made money since she was 13 billion. Some websites, hundreds and hundreds of dollars, right simple website is a 13 year old, right? So like, you can see how my family this history in this legacy passed forward. And it actually got my daughter several opportunities that most undergraduates wouldn't get. But they needed right who both was passionate about the subject area. And they were like, you know how to build a website? And she's like, yup. And they're like, Yeah, she got paid like graduate level opportunities as an undergraduate in college, partially because she's a great student, but partially because she had a skill set, that you can see that sort of culture get passed through our family. Right, right. So I just wanted to sort of ground that those are small examples. But if you add them up through the generations, they're not small. They're absolutely collectively, it is a massive difference when a fan re builds that sort of a culture
Asha Wilkerson 40:55
definitely. And also, what you did when your daughter was young, is that you taught her some skills, right. And so she will always be able to earn a living for herself, because she has a skill set that people everywhere need. And so if she were to lose her job as an employee, somewhere, she would not be down and out, because she could always hire out her services and in as an individual, then she has seen you do that in your company, seen your mom do it in her company. So that's not going to be a foreign concept to her. Whereas I meet a lot of other folks who just, you know, security to them, which is understandable is going to work for somebody else. And people don't know what to do when that job disappears, or dries up. And that's, you know, how society is set up, right? We're taught to go to college and get the job and work for that big company. But my perspective changed, when I realized that I was the asset, I don't need to go and get it, I can go and get a job. And I actually teach full time at a community college. So I am an employee, and also a business owner, entrepreneur, right. But I know that no matter what happens, I will always be able to provide for myself because I am this skill, and I don't need anybody else or any other institution to hire me to be able to make $1
Paul Zelizer 42:18
can agree more, I actually went on a bit of a rant the other day with a client, I think he'll forgive me. But But I was saying to this person, so many times you hear the financial advice, your houses your biggest investment in your lifetime. And I was like, if you look at the numbers of a house, and you look at if you're making, let's say even a low six figure business, and you multiply that out, even you know, if you work for 10 years and a business, that's a six figure business, it's it's, that's over a million dollars, maybe you're several million dollars, but most people's aren't. And if you are in business for yourself for 20 or 30 years, it's worth way more than house even when it's hot market, and you're taking really good care of your house, and you're not taking really good care of your business. Please talk about the scope of what's going to move the needle more in terms of somebody was thinking about financial security and retirement I like you know, please, I'm not saying disregard your house, but this is the single biggest asset you have, and you're not treating it skillfully. Let's change that, please. They'll Forgive me.
Asha Wilkerson 43:30
Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's getting us to think critically about some of these things about some of the messages that we've heard over and over again, you know, my mom worked for the same school district for four years. So for her, and she's just of that generation where job security is you go to one employer and you stay for 40 years, right? That job, that pension that she has doesn't exist anymore. So maybe that would be great. But for my generation coming up, it doesn't exist, the game is totally different. So the advice that got her to where she is I followed in similar footsteps, but it's not giving me the same return as it did for her because my education cost probably, you know, 800 times the amount that it cost her. Right. So we're already starting in different places. Yeah,
Paul Zelizer 44:18
yeah. So talk to us a little bit about your specific business. One of the reasons people listen to the show is kind of like the how I built this of social entrepreneurship. So like, if you just put on your entrepreneur glasses and look at things like revenue streams and how clients find you and who you work with, you don't give us a little sense of what you see as an entrepreneur when you look at your own business.
Asha Wilkerson 44:42
Yeah, absolutely. So I really liked this question. And I was thinking about how to weave this in especially this particular podcast called aware foreigners and talking about social entrepreneurship. A lot of folks think that in order to do social good, they have to be a nonprofit. And that's that's not true. You can be a foreigner Profit business that makes a social impact, as I'm sure many folks in your community are, right. So in terms of my own journey, I started out doing the traditional legal services, litigating, I did employment law, representing plaintiffs who had been wrongfully terminated and I got burnt out. Then I started working with entrepreneurs, and I had a few clients on retainer. And I got burned out of that, too. And I and I had to stop in inventory. And I said, you know, what are the things that you really actually like to do, and I love to teach, I really love it, it doesn't matter if it's an exercise class, or legal class or something else, I just love to do that. And I said, Okay, well, how can you teach and also use this law degree that you got. And so I started doing classes for business owners about legal concepts and things that they needed. And then I created this membership community called transcend, which is specifically for folks of color and under resourced folks who are entrepreneurs who are looking to build a business and leave a legacy. And that is, that is my social impact, right, I'm still doing the attorney thing. I'm just doing it in a different lens. And my sort of contribution, I guess, is, if you will, is that I have it priced at 147 a month. So it's not cost prohibitive to an entrepreneur that's out there, right, I don't want to charge the regular legal rate that if I were to form your business for you, or you know, to draft your contract from scratch, I want to be able to help folks in my community and around with the information that is necessary for them to be successful. And if I do it one on one, it's more of my time. So I put it into a community where we can all learn and grow together, which makes them more affordable for everybody.
Paul Zelizer 46:51
Very similar to the aware printers community, which we now have, like 290 bar members. I'm a huge fan of that model. Yeah. So see how this transcend community. They give us an example of some of the details like how often do you all get together? What kind of things do you talk about? What kind of questions come up? What kind of businesses do the entrepreneurs who are in transcend community? What What do they bring into the table? Absolutely,
Asha Wilkerson 47:17
really good question. So we follow the three pillars that we had talked about earlier about going through, making a strong business Foundation, growing your business, and then financial legacy. And so right now, we are getting ready to jump into contracts the next month, this month in April, we talked about money, all things money, and tax and getting organized. And March, we talked about strong business foundations. So these are the the first three sort of pillars, if you will, of growing it or creating a really strong business foundation. So we meet once a month each theme, we don't meet once a month, we meet three times a month, but each month has its own theme. So April was all about the money, right? As tax season, May is going to be all about contracts. So I will do a workshop on contracts, like what do you need to know what do these terms mean? And how do you use them? Then next Thursday, a friend of mine is going to come in and talk about how to create a contract, where you're you're hiring someone to do a work for hire, so build a website, take photos, design a product for you, and how do you make sure that you retain ownership of that. And I didn't even realize that that was such a big deal. Until I met someone who designs websites for somebody. And in her contract, she retains ownership of the website, and then the person she's building it for is really just leasing it from them. So in order to get ownership so they can make changes, and you know, put it on another website or do whatever they want to do with it. They have to buy her out with like $3,000. And I was like, Whoa, okay. This is something you definitely want to be aware of. Right. So we have three meetings a month. Two of them are workshops, and the last meeting of the month. The third Thursday is a q&a session. So it's myself as the attorney and a friend of mine, who is an enrolled agent with the IRS. So we cover business, legal and tax. So anybody in the membership comes and ask questions, and we filled them as best as we can.
Paul Zelizer 49:17
For what a powerful offering so excited to let people know about it. And if you were to move beyond the community, and we'll put a link in the show notes, go check it out or where printers tell your friends what a needed resource and let's help get the word out about it community.
49:37
Thank you.
Paul Zelizer 49:38
Yeah. If you were going to look ahead, right, you've been thinking about these things. And it seems like you sort of landed in a strong way is kind of in an aligned way is my sense of inertia. As somebody who's thinking about business and the impact and the legacy of business, forget and is building a community and out there talking about it on podcasts like this one. If you look ahead five years, where do you see the state from business legacy, and particularly for bipoc? entrepreneurs? Where do you see things headed? And what do you Yeah, what do you see five years down the road for social entrepreneurs, particularly social entrepreneurs of color, who are paying attention and moving the needle? Where do you think we're going?
Asha Wilkerson 50:28
Yeah, I think our revenue will be increased, I think we will have a lower failure rate than what we have right now. I mean, most businesses fail within the first three years, right. And a lot of it has to do with because people are passionate about the thing of the business, but they don't know how to run a business. And as an entrepreneur, you need to learn how to do both. You need to learn how to read your numbers, how to market how to grow how to, you know, create a vision, and then execute. And if it's not you who's going to execute how to put those people in place, right? Those are the skills that you develop over time, and also by seeing somebody else run a business. So my goal is to equip people with the hard skills that you need to run a business so that their passion can grow and that their impact can grow. So I think we will have more entrepreneurs, I think we will have more longevity in entrepreneurship, which will then lead to a transformation in our immediate families in terms of the economics and financial status, which then translates into the local community, into the bigger neighborhood and into the state. I see us growing and being more economically influential in the next five years.
Paul Zelizer 51:46
Beautiful. As you were talking, we just published as we're recording this. We're recording it on a Thursday, this past Tuesday, we published Episode 198 with Yasmin Cruz furrion, who I already mentioned, do you know visible hands a VC startup firm, that's particularly seed money for entrepreneurs of color founders?
Asha Wilkerson 52:08
Don't Yeah, I'm gonna go look rap, though.
Paul Zelizer 52:10
Okay, yeah, she's connected to black VC, and VC familia, like, she's bad. She's awesome. She gave us some vocabulary that I could hear her echoing her her wisdom or their wisdom, I don't know if she developed it, or it's a VC visible hands VC frame, but she talked about three types of capital. And I heard, there's financial capital, so there's gonna be more money in the hands of social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs of color. She also talked about social capital and inspirational capital. And I think the failure rate, when you put those three together, you can see like so many impact entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color, don't have access to resources for all the inequality that we talked about so many times on this podcast listeners, but also the social and the inspirational capital, like, Oh, my gosh, I don't have that uncle that saying, you know, hey, you know, pay attention to how you organize your structure. Now that you're here, you might want to think about or let me introduce you to so and so or, you know, the just the tips. And when you hit a hard spot to somebody to say, wow, this is hard, I don't know what to do. And we're surrounded by community and you're surrounded by people who've navigated things like this before the the failure rate goes way, way down. So I hear Yasmin's wisdom of like, those three types of capital, the financial, the social, and the inspirational, are all growing really quite rapidly right now. And I hear you saying five years from now, that stuff's gonna come together in a good way. That sounds about right.
Asha Wilkerson 53:45
I think so I absolutely agree with that. I think also another thing, you know, we look at people's wins on social media, on LinkedIn, on Instagram, wherever it is, right. And we see this overnight success because it's presented as an overnight success. But entrepreneurship is so hard life is hard, right? But you work for somebody else, or work for yourself. It is hard and having that community support and people who have been through it before you and people who are going through it with you is so important, I think, to your longevity, because you know, there's so many times in life, we feel like we must be the only one going through this, or it's really hard to make this sale. I must not be good enough for this. But then to be able to talk to somebody who is also struggling or who has struggled and has gone through it already and come out the other side is necessary so that you don't give up on your dream or so when you know that it is time to pivot and to do something different. That community aspect is extremely important.
Paul Zelizer 54:48
It's been fabulous having you here and I could talk to you all day, but I wouldn't do that to you and I won't do that to our listeners. If there was we're gonna send them to your website. Again, listeners, please Please help spread the word of the transcend community and everything that Asha is doing. If there was something you were hoping we were going to get to on this topic, or build a business and leave a legacy that we haven't touched on yet, or if there was something you want to leave our listeners with, as we start to wind down, what would that be?
Asha Wilkerson 55:18
I would say that nothing that you have experienced thus far has disqualified you from doing exactly what you want to do in social entrepreneurship, everything has led you to this point. And the things that give you a little bit of anxiety make you a little bit nervous, that seem a little scary. It's just because you don't have enough information yet. So don't be afraid to go and get the information, put those pillars of support around you, and go get it go do exactly what it is that you want to do be unapologetic about it. And then come back and tell us how it went.
Paul Zelizer 55:50
I should thank you so so much for being on the show today. It's been fabulous having you here.
Asha Wilkerson 55:54
Thank you, it's been a pleasure to have this discussion with you as well. So again, we'll
Paul Zelizer 55:59
put all the links in the show notes, please, listeners, you know what we care about, you know what we're all about, go tell your friends about this fabulous work. For now, that's all the time we have. Before we go. Just a quick reminder, we love listener suggested topics and guests. If you have an idea of something we haven't talked about, or somebody is doing some really incredible work in this space, please go to the enterpreneurs website and look at our contact page. On the page itself are three criteria. We try to keep it really simple and really transparent how we decide and make us pitch. Tell us your idea. We love listener suggested guests and top. For now I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our work.